RE: Computer Hardware is a Commodity -- MIDRANGE-L

Joe Pluta wrote:

>I'm going to weigh in with the opposing viewpoint 
>(now THERE'S a surprise, eh?<grin>).  

A blessing, but not a surprise...

>The AS/400 (and perhaps the entire continuum 
>of the IBM midrange platform) is an absolutely 
>unique development environment.  

Because of the 5250 datastream?

>Unlike any other machine that I've worked on, 
>the AS/400 has allowed users to upgrade to 
>newer and better hardware and software while 
>still running their legacy applications.

Most of those legacy apps are S/34/36 code, alas demonstrating that the
hardware doesn't make this particular machine.

>In the last five years or so, we've gone from a pure OPM, 
>RPG-only (okay, COBOL too) environment to a fully 
>Java-enabled, ILE capable, SQL-accessible machine - 
>and yet the programs we wrote ten years ago STILL RUN.

There's no question that the new stuff you mention is indeed available, but
they don't really reflect on the AS/400 hardware; in fact, ILE is just
beginning to let us "catch up" to the PC development folks, our SQL is still
behind mainframe DB2 and Java is new to everybody.  Besides which, the
ex-S/36 programmers resist en masse changes to the existing RPG II status
quo.

>While I agree that the applications help make the 
>machine, without this particular machine, there 
>would be none of the applications.

Given the number of ex-S/36 businesses vs the number of ex-S/38 businesses,
I can't help but think that the really unique ability of this particular
machine is S/36EE, which is an OS function.  IBM could just as easily sold a
higher priced, speedier model of S/36 and let the S/38 fade away.  The
hardware itself is secondary to the application suite.

The point (do I have one?) is that by and large, the application suite being
demanded by current customers is much more hardware-generic and much less
datastream specific.  Customers want to see icons not green screen and the
sales numbers prove it.  Futile discussions about faster or more efficient
are irrelevant.  The market drives demand for developers.  I have never seen
an RPF requiring "text displays for faster, more efficient data entry."  I
have seen countless RPFs asking about our GUI.

Like it or not, here in 2001 Windows *IS* the desktop for a huge chunk of
the software market.  That means generic client hardware running against a
generic database/application/print server.  ODBC, JDBC et. al. don't require
specific hardware on either side of the connexion.

Like it or not, people like me are hard pressed to tout the AS/400 platform
because of the perceived initial cost and the "legacy"  sobriquet.  To top
it off, I can't even write a decent Windows GUI (no practise because of
maintaining subfiles for 20 years) whether I use IBM's VaRPG, ASNA's VRPG,
Delphi/400 or even Visual Basic.  And my Java!  Yuck.  Only the mainframers
are worse off than I am (GUI wise), but at least they can take some solace
from the fact that customers don't expect a mainframe to compete with a PC
like they expect AS/400 to.

Lest anybody think I am simply bad-mouthing the box for the sake of it, this
opinion (poorly stated as usual) is the result of long and hard soul
searching.  When I think of "saving the 400" I invariably think of
maintaining the same S/36 style code, no matter if it runs on S/36, AS/400
or iSeries hardware.  I believe the hardware is like a paper towel dispenser
- it's there to sell paper towels, and has little value beyond that.

Buck 
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